When running a business, decision making is something that you have to do constantly – whether it’s deciding to take your company in a certain direction, how to spend your money or how to relate to your staff. This series of TED Talks takes a look at approaching hard decisions, making choices that will affect our future selves and how they change the way we work.
Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices
In this TED Talk, philosopher Ruth Chang speaks on hard choices and the role they play in our lives. Hard choices are often the ones that matter most to us. When deciding where to work, what career path to follow or where to live, Chang says that some choices aren’t necessarily better than others, making them all that more difficult to decide upon. Because there is not always external reasoning behind making one choice over the other, hard decisions force us to create our own reasoning, shaping who we really are and making us the authors of our own lives.
Daniel Goldstein: The battle between your present and future self
Every day, we make decisions that have good or bad consequences for our future selves. It may seem like a good idea to sell your business now, but how will that decision affect you after 10 years? In this TED Talk, Daniel Goldstein speaks on using tools to help us imagine ourselves over time, so that we make smart choices for Future Us.
Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing
Researcher Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices and how we feel about the choices we make. In this TED Talk she speaks about both trivial choices and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research comparing our attitudes towards work when we are able to make our own decisions versus when our decisions are made for us.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s post on decision making. Follow us on Twitter for more TED Talks, Tips from the Experts and insight pieces.